Tag: Margot at the Wedding

Favorite Posters of 2007

I love me some movie posters.  Especially when they’re either a) beautiful enough to stand as art in their own right or b) depict the film they advertise in a particularly apt or innovative way.  Thanks to the Internet Movie Poster Awards site (which is a wonderful resource for posters, award-worthy or no), I’ve been able to look closely at last year’s posters (and previous years, but let’s not push this Year’s Best thing too far–we’re already three months into a new year) and chosen several that I think ought to be recognized.

While narrowing down the choices, I did discover several biases I have–things that generally make me like or dislike a poster.  Floating heads of the stars = bad. Selling the film based only on the stars = bad. Lots of negative space = good. Characters depicted facing away from us or in long shot = good. Hand-drawn, cartoony, or stylized quality = usually good.  Anyway, here are my favorite posters from last year. (And regarding the order, I’ve changed it many many times even since I started writing this post, so I don’t even know if it’s at all accurate to my thoughts anymore.)

#10: Eastern Promises

hr_Eastern_Promises_10

 

Eastern Promises is about people who make their living with their hands – fighting and killing, surviving in the Russian mafia.  Highlighting the hands — and the numerous tattoos that identify relationships with specific underworld factions — is perfect, because ultimately what matters in the film is what the characters choose to do with the information they gain.  Plus, focusing on body parts other than the face makes for a much more interesting poster than most.  The only thing that would’ve improved the poster is to have left off the strip of faces on the bottom, which really adds nothing.

 

#9: 3:10 to Yuma

310toYumaPoster

 

Biases alert: character facing away from us, stylized look, focus on story (gunslinger waiting for train, seen between his legs).  This was one of my very favorite posters when it came out last year, but I’ve started to cool on it a little bit because I think ultimately, it’s a little too busy.  The grunge styling is cool, but there’s too much of it in too many places, too many flourishes, and the director blurb on the right side is indulgent.  Still, the monochrome coloring and unusual layout make it heaps better than most posters.

 

 

#8: Spider-Man 3

spider_man_three

 

Another tendency I have: a strong preference for teaser posters over the final one-sheets.  Regardless of how good Spider-Man 3 turned to be (or not be), this teaser is near perfection.  It’s simple, it’s iconic, and he’s wearing a black suit.  Which I know, I know, is evil, but it’s SO HOT.  The later posters made the conflict between good/red Spider-Man and bad/black Spider-Man more clear, but for pure visual impact, none of them match this one.

 

 

 

The rest after the jump.

Trailer Watch – Highly Anticipated

Haven’t done a trailer watch for a while. Most of the things I’m most interested in, especially this time of the year, are limited release films, and it feels weird to plug them when they come out when I know that I and most everyone I know won’t be able to see them for at least a few weeks, if then. So it’s sort of weird. But there are some things coming out that I’m super-excited about. Most of these are coming out in the next couple of months.

Juno

opens December 5th, limited

CURRENT MOST ANTICIPATED. I want to see it two months ago. Except if I had I couldn’t be enjoying the anticipation so much right now. Ellen Page is one of the best young actresses in Hollywood right now hands down, Michael Cera is adorable, plus Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner. And it’s a total festival darling of exactly the type that I always love. I’m also pleased that screenwriter Diablo Cody is getting as much attention as she is; screenwriters don’t get noticed as much as they should, and she was getting noticed even before the strike. Ooh, and I forgot until I just watched the trailer again–Thank You For Smoking was one of my favorite films last year, so I’m a fan of the director, too.

Atonement

opens December 7th

After I see Juno, Atonement will become my CURRENT MOST ANTICIPATED. Of course, that won’t last long, since it comes out two days later. Ah well. The book is one of the best I’ve read all year, the cast is great, it’s the same guy that directed Pride and Prejudice a couple of years ago (which quickly became one of my favorite Austen adaptations), and pretty much every review I’ve seen from the festival circuit has been nothing short of glowing. Read the book, folks, then go see the movie. Simple as that.

More after the jump.

Margot at the Wedding trailer

I’ve stopped doing the trailers for opening movies every week. It just entailed far too much time thinking about films I don’t want to see and finding trailers for obscure films that may or may not ever come anywhere near me or anyone I know. So I’m going to do trailers on a much more haphazard, as-I-see-them basis. Here’s one I ran across via Anne Thompson and Karina Longworth. It’s Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Jack Black in Margot at the Wedding, from Noah Baumbach, who directed the well-received-but-as-yet-unseen-by-me The Squid and the Whale. It looks good. And it looks like it’s the good side of Nicole Kidman, who I swear has schizophrenic acting tendencies (i.e., the dumb, annoying one from Bewitched and The Stepford Wives and the actual good one from The Hours and Dogville), which makes me happy because I always want to love her, and then she does stupid roles and disappoints me.

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